renting an apartment in china

Both me and my wife have had a nightmare whilst dealing with our new landlord out here in Xi’an. Below I am going to break down what things you need to consider whilst renting an apartment out here in China and for each one I will give you our personal horror story.

​1. Dont take what the landlord says at face value

OK, so both me and my wife were extremely busy in our own lives whilst recently looking for an apartment to rent. I work at least 45 hours a week and to top it off, I was also studying my university course for around 4 - 5 hours each evening. My wife was 8-9 months pregnant and both of us were completely exhausted and burnt out. By the time we came to our fifth apartment viewing of the day we liked the apartment and we loved the area. We were just too busy and tired to explore every single device and item they had in the apartment, so when the landlady (who I will say seemed very nice) told us everything worked, we just went for it and signed the contract. Bad idea!​2. Check the amenities!

This is very important because if they break down it is your fault and will very likely come out of your deposit! OK, so remember that the landlord told us that all of the amenities in the apartment worked so really there should be no problem, right? Well, wrong! They didn’t all work. To begin with the air conditioning in all the rooms was screwed and blowing hot air which is the last thing you want in the Xi’an summer. When we rang the landlady up and explained the situation with the air conditioning she said ‘Oh yeah, I know that!’ What?!? Seriously! She explained before we signed the contract that everything was working fine and now admits she knew the air conditioning wasn’t working. This woman before I go any further is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box so my wife pretty much tied her in knots when it came to an argument. The landlady at first refused to get the air conditioning repaired and claimed it would be no big deal, but eventually she did cave in after a few minutes and said she would have it fixed.

The second thing we had problems with was the washing machine. After moving in and deciding to use the washing machine, we were shocked to discover that the clothes were dirtier after the machine had spun them. The clothes would come out covered in all of this horrible white fibre and the machine itself was making a tremendous amount of noise and would shake uncontrollably. My wife addressed this with the landlady and again she decided to make some stupid excuses in relation to the washing machine and that it was fine. This went on for a few weeks and bear in mind my wife was heavily pregnant during this period and the last thing she wanted was stress. Eventually the landlady agreed that the washing machine wasn’t working properly and agreed to get us a new washing machine but only after arguing and pointing out that she had clearly lied to us about the amenities not working properly.

The third and final thing was the case of the fridge freezer. The seal on the freezer door was damaged and meant that the freezer couldn’t freeze items properly as warm air would get in to the freezer and create havoc with our food. What was also alarming is that the sides of the fridge freezer were red hot and anyone who has dealt with fridge freezers can tell you; the sides of a fridge should be warm as it is switched on, but not red hot! What made this worse is that the Grenfell Tower block incident had just happened in London and it was eventually found out that an old malfunctioning fridge freezer had caused it. So two things there - the freezer wasn’t working, and the freezer sides were also red hot and it seemed to us that a fire could be caused at any moment. Again, the amenities were not working fine!

The landlord (Husband of the lying wretch we had been dealing with) said that he wouldn’t replace the freezer and that we had to continue using it as it was fine. Eventually both me and my wife gave up on this one and bought a fridge freezer ourselves which I will say is doing an amazing job. However, the landlord had not removed the old washing machine or the old fridge from the apartment and these were huge items just standing in our apartment living room. My wife kindly asked if the landlord could remove them as both me and my wife were busy at the care centre as she had just given birth. The landlord refused and said that they had to stay there as he had nowhere to store them. Store them! They were old and broken anyway, why not just throw them in the trash or sell them as scrap? My wife tried to plead with the landlord on this and again he refused and threatened me and my wife to be out of the apartment by the end of the month, even though we had paid six months rent upfront and that we wouldn’t be getting our deposit back. Bear in mind it was almost the end of the month by this point and my wife was still recovering in a care centre from giving birth so how the hell in our situation were we to find a suitable apartment in that short space of time. The landlord knew this as well! Eventually we were able to compromise and the estate agent has allowed us to keep the BROKEN refrigerator and BROKEN washing machine in the back room of his office.

3. Check how old the amenities are!

The truth is, all of the amenities in this apartment are fairly old anyway and have probably been there since the apartment was first built around ten years ago. With this is mind, it is no wonder that the washing machine and fridge freezer were working poorly as well as the air con blowing hot air. Another concern that both me and my wife have is the hot water boiler. This machine looks like it is ready to break at any minute and it makes a terrible noise every time we run a hot water tap. Chinese people have since told me that landlords will often do this as a strategy. They will fill the apartment with old amenities and then hopefully whilst someone is renting it out, the said amenities will break and then they can buy new ones from the deposit that the tenant has given them by claiming it was the tenants fault.

Top tips for renting an apartment

Check that things work.Check them physically and thoroughly.Do not take what the landlord says at face value, no matter how nice they seem!

Conclusion

The truth is the above tips seem like common sense but the other landlord we had spoken to the previous day had a rotten attitude so we decided to give her a wide berth. Obviously after dealing with that woman this new landlady seemed like an angel sent from above. How wrong we were! Overall, the landlady who we are with now broke her contract as they said that things were working fine only for us to find out after signing that she was lying. I have spoke to people about this as we signed a legal document but the only advice I have received is to not bother taking it further as no legal team or police force will show any interest what so ever. ‘Contracts mean nothing in China’ is the only advice that Chinese people are giving me. My advice; follow my top tips from above and take everything the landlord tells you with a pinch of salt as you never know when they might screw you over.